Excelsior Correspondent
SRINAGAR, Aug 29: All Parties Sikh Coordination Committee (APSCC) has apprehended that many of the young Sikh voters may have been excluded from the voter list in Kashmir valley as the census carried out in 2011 was not done in an organized manner.
The Committee has also expressed concern over the scattering of Sikh voters, saying that the sole aim of this exercise was to ensure that Sikhs did not put up a united front.
These concern was raised by a delegation of APSCC during their meeting with the officials of the Chief Electoral Officer, J&K. The delegation was led by APSCC Chairman, Jagmohan Singh Raina. The committee had planned to raise these issues with the team of Election Commission of India that visited Jammu & Kashmir some weeks back. As the Committee could not meet the ECI due to the paucity of time of the later, the poll body had directed Chief Electoral Officer to get in touch with them and listen to their point of view.
Jagmohan Raina said that the Committee had proposed to the government to take a team of the Sikh community while carrying out the census in Kashmir valley in 2011. He said that since majority of the Sikh families had left villages and settled in city areas like Mehjoor Nagar, Aloochi Bagh, Jawahar Nagar and others, it was necessary that community members were to be taken along while the census was carried out.
“We apprehend that many of the young Sikh voters may not vote in the coming Assembly elections since their names might be missing in the voter lists,” said Raina.
APSCC Chairman said that the matters could have been resolved had the Election Commission of India spared some time and met the committee members. He said that the other issues pertaining to the community have been put to backburner and there is no accountability.
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